Unforgivable Read Free

sheriff on him. I want him to pay for what he did. Ben said they wouldn’t believe me.” 
    “He’s probably right.”
    “He said I shouldn’t raise a stink.”
    “What do you want to do?”
    “Raise a stink.”
    Silas removed his hand and started the truck. There was a ghost of a smile on his mouth. He drove to the Sheriff’s office. And he walked inside with her.
    “Little girl, surely you’re mistaken,” Sheriff Tate said when she’d related her story in the waiting area. He was older than Ben, but not by much. All the dark wood on the walls and floors made the area look warm, but it didn’t feel warm. The sunlight pouring in through the front windows was almost blinding. “Gary might raise a ruckus now and again, but he’s no cat killer.” He looked at Silas, who stood behind her. “You see this happen?”
    Silas paused, as though he were considering lying and saying he did. He shook his head. “She isn’t lying.”
    At that moment, she knew that even if no one believed her, if Gary never paid for his crime, that Silas’s standing up for her would help the pain. 
    The sheriff turned back to her. “Are you sure you didn’t drop the kitten and are looking for someone else to blame?”
    “I didn’t drop him! I love…” She gulped down the sob that threatened to tear out. “I love him,” she finished on a thick whisper.
    The sheriff looked at the receptionist. “Call Sam over.”
    Gary’s dad. Surely now Silas would back down, tell her she didn’t have a chance. He didn’t. He was as silent and thin as a wooden post, and just as sturdy. Sheriff Tate squinted out the front window where the battered truck was parked. Then he looked at Silas. “You old enough to drive that thing?”
    “I got my learner’s permit. My dad wasn’t around, and we had to get the kitten to the hospital.”
    Uh oh. Now she’d gotten Silas into trouble. 
    “Seen you driving into town by yourself before. Does your old man know it’s illegal for a fifteen year-old to drive by himself?”
    Silas’s face went a shade paler, though his body didn’t give away an ounce of discomfort. “He’s been laid up with a broken ankle, can’t manage the shifter. Soon as he’s able, he’ll be driving again.”
    “Maybe I’ll have me a talk with him.”
    “He’s gone a lot, selling his statues.”
    “With a broken ankle?”
    Silas shrugged. “I drive him.”
    Once in a while Katie would see Silas and his dad at their makeshift stand by the crossroads selling pieces of wood carved into the shapes of horses and wolves. 
    “What the hell is going on?” Sam boomed in a loud voice as he walked inside. He was Italian, her mama had said, and reminded her of Marlon Brando. He was in the middle of swabbing his forehead when he saw Katie and went dead still. “What’s she   doing here?”
    “Says Gary threw her kitten against a glass window, hurt it bad.”
    “And what does she want with me?” He hadn’t even looked at her since the first glance.
    She didn’t like being ignored. “I want him to be punished for what he did.”
    Sam didn’t look the least bit surprised or shamed by what his son had done. He hardened his brown eyes at her. “You got proof of that, little girl?”
    “I saw him do it! That’s proof!”
    Sam picked up the phone at the reception desk and asked for his son. “You throw a kitten against a window?” he barked into the phone without greeting. Then he hung up. “He said he didn’t. Looks like it’s his word against yours.”
    “She ain’t lying,” Silas said.
    Sam took in Silas’s tall, rangy frame. “I don’t have time for this crap. Sheriff, you going to book my son?”
    Tate was leaning against the desk, his arms crossed. “Nope.”
    “I’m outta here.”
    Without another glance at Katie or Silas, he walked out. A burst of hot air from outside washed over her cheeks. She looked at the sheriff, but he was already walking to his office. The woman behind the desk quickly grabbed